Health care foundation president steps down

The Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut announced today that Juan A. Figueroa will step down as the foundation’s president in September 2012. Over the next several months, he will lead the foundation and its stakeholders through an extensive strategic planning process to determine the direction and focus of the next generation of the foundation’s work.

The board of directors also has announced that Frances G. Padilla, the foundation’s executive vice president, who joined the foundation in 2004, will succeed Figueroa.

Figueroa, who served as a Connecticut legislator and assistant attorney general, was formerly president and general counsel of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York City. He returned to Connecticut when he was hired as the foundation’s first president in 2003.

“Leading the foundation through its first decade has been a privilege,” Figueroa said in a press release issued today by the foundation. It’s been a job of a lifetime to be able to work with so many bright and passionate people on one of the most important issues of our generation. It’s a bonus knowing that the foundation and the committed members of our network are moving Connecticut forward on the path to universal access to quality, affordable health care.”

Under Figueroa’s leadership, the foundation provided seed funds for innovative programs such as the Urban Track Program at the University of Connecticut Medical School; health equity research led by the Connecticut Association of Directors of Health.